Five Unmistakable Signs Your Employees Don't Trust You

Dear Liz,

I managed Customer Support in my company for six years.

Last summer I got transferred. The company opened a new Customer Care Center and I was put in charge of Facilities.

I have no background in Facilities. I've told my team of seven long-term employees that I will rely on them completely as I learn the ropes.

I've tried my best to listen to my employees and bring their concerns (none of which, luckily, are major issues) to my Regional Director.

Ironically my new boss "Ray" says I'm doing a great job but tells me that I have to be firmer with my employees.

My team members probably wouldn't say I'm doing a great job.

They mutter behind my back. They treat me like an outsider.

I've tried everything. I've sat down with each of them and those meetings are stiff. I've tried to open up to them and asked them to do the same.

I think they are pretty well paid. No one has brought up pay as an issue.

Their issues have more to do with overtime scheduling, the length of advance notice I need to give someone a day off (about two to three weeks), our flexibility in scheduling their shifts (not much) and some concerns related to the way I talk to them or give them instructions.

I have been honest in saying "I managed customer service people before. They were young and happy to be mentored."

This is a different type of crew. They know their jobs and I respect that, but I need to be able to "butt in" and ask them detailed questions about the way they do things in order for me to manage them responsibly, and also in order for me to learn the department's work.

For the first month or two after I started, some of my employees would ask me to join them for lunch in the company cafeteria, but around Christmas that stopped. Now they don't invite me.

As I mentioned, my team members have brought me fifteen or twenty complaints about their work and schedules. I take note of everything they complain about but as you can imagine, my day-to-day job is demanding enough!

I have a long to-do list and my employees' complaints are prominent on it.

I'm at my wit's end. I can't even say "I like my job" because I walk around my department through a cloud of mistrust.

I must have said fifteen times "I like you guys. I trust you. I respect you, and I'm glad we are co-workers" but it doesn't help.

What should I do?

Thanks,

Vance

Dear Vance,

It sounds like a stressful situation!

It is hard to take someone else's point of view. It can be frustrating to look at someone who won't engage with you and wonder "Why are they so fearful of me?"

You're not afraid of yourself, of course! You can't imagine why anyone else would find it difficult to like or trust you.

However, it is critical for you to see your situation through your co-workers' eyes.

You came in not only as a new manager, but as a new manager with no experience in Facilities.

Some of your co-workers have worked in Facilities for years. They may resent the fact that you got the Manager job instead of one of them. How can we blame them for feeling that way?

Your Director says you should be firmer with your employees.

Of course your teammates feel that fearful energy, translated through you!

It is easy to say "I like you, and I trust you — so let's work together!" but it takes real work to built real trust.

Your employees may have the legitimate concern "Why should we train our new manager, on top of doing our own jobs?"

If you are imperious about the way you approach them — and it would be easy to adopt an imperious tone if you are a bit insecure about your subject-matter expertise, which is only to be expected — those approaches could easily make someone bristle.

Your employees have concerns. You have a credibility problem. The answer is clear!  You have to do some work for them, if you want them to trust you.

Your teammates will begin to trust you when you show them that:

1. you're willing to expend political capital on their behalf

2. you aren't afraid to bring their "minor" issues to your leadership team, and

3. you will work as hard to solve their problems as you would to solve you own (or even harder)

You mention your long to-do list and the prominence of your employees' "complaints" but don't mention having solved even one issue your employees brought you — although you've had your job for almost a year.

No wonder your employees don't trust you! How could they? So far, you may look to them like just another jive-talking, glad-handing company stooge.

As a manager, the welfare of your team is your highest priority.

With every passing week and month their confidence in their boss can only be expected to wane as their requests and suggestions go unanswered.

Here are five signs your employees don't trust you:

1. At first your team members brought you their ideas, concerns and questions but now they don't.

2. When there is a disturbance in the Force at your job — conflict between your department and others, for instance — you don't hear about it from your own workmates. You hear about it from someone else.

3. Your teammates used to confide in you about their impressions of the work, the company, its leadership and so on, but now they don't.

4. When you approach several of your employees conversing together, they stop talking and smile at you.

5. When you ask your teammates "So, what other great ideas and thoughts do you guys have?" they are silent.

Every new manager has the same challenge to surmount. If you try managing your team from fear ("I'm your manager, and I demand to know how you fixed that problem in the sprinkler system!") you will fail.

You can't force people to trust you, and you won't get good results from a team that distrusts their manager.

Be careful about labeling your team members' issues and concerns "complaints."

When your boss Ray tells you to change something in your department, do you call Ray's instruction a "complaint?" Why would your team members' concerns have any less weight that Ray's do?

Employees who have needs and ideas for improving the practices in your company are not complainers. Why is feedback a gift when it comes from customers, but it's a "complaint" when it comes from employees?

Your team members are not "complaining."

They are serving as your company's eyes and ears on the real world. If it were not these particular seven people filling you in on the need to respect reality, it would be a different seven people.

Stop making excuses and go talk to Ray this week about a revised and/or clarified overtime-scheduling policy, simplify your vacation-scheduling procedure and begin to earn your employees' trust, inch by inch.

You will be amazed how the energy at work improves when you do!

Yours,

Liz